Consumer electronic devices are essential for the modern home or small office. The range of application is broad as it includes entertainment, communications, personal productivity, energy management, home safety and security, health and wellness, convenience and automation, etc.
A problem with consumer electronic devices today is the short product life. Invariably, soon after a product has been purchased, a newer and better version of the same product is available in the market. Further, the vendor that manufactured the original product may stop the support or abandon the development of the original product.
Most device makers have adopted the business model of planned obsolescence. Most devices are now designed to last only for a limited useful life. The manufacturer makes sure that, when a device is broken, the repair cost is about the same as the replacement cost of a newer and better device.
Today, a consumer replaces a complete device simply because a “desirable or needed” functionality, which might only be 10% of the overall functionality, is damaged. As the life expectancy of all consumer products has declined steadily, most consumers regularly replace their devices at various frequencies. In the end, consumers pay more for their lifestyle.
A second concern for consumer electronic devices is the lack of customization. As every home or small office is unique in its own way, the requirement for matching equipment varies greatly. However, for volumetric efficiency, device makers offer only a limited choice of features, in the effort to drive down the manufacturing cost. As a result, a consumer often buys a product with redundant or even unwanted features.
On the other hand, customized products are available only at significantly higher prices. The middle-of-the-road solution is modular consumer devices. A modular device is hardware reconfigurable and allows an end user to insert and assemble different hardware modules on a fixed platform, in order that the final assembly performs a customized set of functions.
Possibly, the first modular consumer electronic device is the modular handset planned by Google under the Ara project. With an Ara base platform, a user is allowed to build a wireless communicator with a collection of snap-together parts. For example, a customer who prefers a hard keyboard will be able to add one. Another customer who desires a high-end camera will be able to upgrade to a specialty camera.
However, there are simply no modular consumer electronic devices in the market other than the proposed Google handsets. For example, there are no modular TV sets that allow insertion of a digital camera, a temperature sensor, or other custom parts into a flat-panel display. There are also no custom buildable Wi-Fi routers, which can be expanded to include a TV tuner, a cable-TV modem, or a wireless data modem connecting to a mobile carrier.
In fact, there is no fundamental difference between a modular TV set and a modular Wi-Fi router from a modular device point of view. Both are hybrid modular consumer devices. A TV set as a modular base can be inserted with a modular Wi-Fi router; a Wi-Fi router as a modular base can also be inserted with a modular TV set. In one aspect, both can be considered as a special case of a hybrid modular consumer appliance in the home or small office. However, such a generic and hybrid modular device simply does not exist today.
Therefore, there is a need for a hybrid modular and customizable consumer electronic device in the home of small office, which is not a wireless communicator.